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A Virtual Baby Shower for a Far Away Friend

I am jumping right back into the world of blogging by participating in a Virtual Baby Shower for my friend Jenna, from Jenna’s Everything Blog. She was one of the first blogs I started following waaay back in the day when I discovered the world of blogging.

Last year.

{Apparently, my small town is behind the trends by about 4 years!}

She and I quickly became blogging buddies, and in honor of the upcoming birth of their first child, Alice {SQUEEEE! how cute is that name?!} I have jumped on the Virtual Baby Shower bandwagon to welcome her into Motherhood!

And how ridiculously CUTE is she?! Her lil’ preggo tummy is literally the size of mine when I was about 2 months along! Jeepers!

Anyhow, I have compiled 11 Lessons for her and hubs to study and complete before the birth of their sweet baby:

11 Lessons to Determine If You Are Ready for Parenthood

{Original source unknown}

Lesson 1Preparing for a new kind of life….1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your or your husbands salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the newspaper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2Find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. Eat cold food with one hand for dinner.
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Try to stay awake. If you are a working mom, get ready for work and go to work.
(work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 6Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle Cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Pretty!

Lesson 7Grocery Shopping1. Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice).
2. If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat.
3. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight.
4. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8Feeding your baby
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

Lesson 9Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, and the Veggie Tales. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking what is ‘Noggin’?)
Exactly the point.

Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran “The Nanny” Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt-sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Dear Jenna,

Congrats on your Impending Entrance into Motherhood! It IS a wild ride, but soooo worth it! 🙂 Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you’ll need when you become a parent!
(that and another Mommy to vent to)

26 thoughts on “A Virtual Baby Shower for a Far Away Friend”

What a perfect list for her to ‘live out’ to prepare for the drastic changes ahead! LOL! Will be looking forward to an update when that baby arrives…and yes, Jenna is adorable with that preggo belly for sure. *I*

HILARIOUS!! I died laughing through the whole thing. I’m so glad your blog was first on the list, what a great start to the shower!! And to the day! Thank you Tonya for joining us and putting up with my ineptitude. I think we managed to pull it off despite it all! haha

Oh yes. That just about sums it all up. You just wrote my whole life as a mother. I just kept saying, “been there, done that, and that, and that, and that except instead of peanut butter it was Desitin all over the brand new carpet, stuffed animals, new comforter, new curtains…”. The raw chicken thing reminds me of something that my daughter just told me about my 5 years old grandson. My daughter bought her son a goldfish. He played and played with the goldfish, scooping it up with his hands, pouring it from one container to the other, etc. The next day my daughter noticed that the fish was gone. She questioned her son about it. “No Mom. I don’t know where the fish went. He just disappeared. I don’t know how he got out.” Bottom line: the fish died (surprise!) and my grandson hid the evidence behind the potted plant in the corner of the living room. Anyway, these were great and funny and painfully, hysterically accurate. 🙂

Oh Tonya, you are so sweet to jump back into blogging to write this post! Thank you! And your post is cracking me up. BTW, the thing that makes me squirm the most is lesson #4, about the mess . . . God will give me the grace! (I just have to hold onto that truth, because I certainly know that grace isn’t going to come without Him =)

Don’t worry too much, you are a neat and tidy OCD-ish person like I am. Kids can be trained to wash hands after meals and tidy up after themselves, HOWEVER, it’s those “Uh Oh Mommy” moments in between that get ya!